Greetings! Happy New Year!

Hello all! Gadzooks it has been quite some time since our last post. I kept meaning to update the blog butttt never happened.

Anyways, the last post was in April. Since then Britt had another surgery for her ear in May - poor thing :( On the plus side, she has regained a bit of her hearing in that ear! :)

Britt and I traveled to Washington in July to be with family!  All of our nieces and nephews are getting so big! It can't be happening! :) We had a great time and Britt's ears didn't bother her at all! The pressure used to really cause her a lot of pain and dsicomfort.

Brittany's job as a nanny is going well. She loves the kids she cares for and she gets to drive the new car :D My job is going well. I will be attending a conference in Anaheim next week - good times! I am currently transferring to Western Governors University from Temple U. It is a highly accredited, online university with great flexibility on course work and such and is quite affordable!

As far as church goes, Britt and I were released from our callings in the youth and she is now a Primary teacher and I am the ward financial clerk. Goood times.. :)

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment. I'm confident Britt will expound on some more things in a later post :) I'm a guy, nuff said. However, below are some pics from this past year. Enjoy!

 Brittany and I as object models for a photo shoot

 

 

 

 

Christmas at the Barclay's (From left to right: Me, Brittany, John, Cathy, Jenny, Jenn, Abby, and Avery)

 

 

 

New Year's Eve



Life.

Once again, sorry for the lack of posts. I am so bad at this blogging thing, i think once we have kids I may get a bit better, seeing as I will have more to blog about! Any who...life is grand, well some parts are at least. Lets focus on good things first! I got called as the YW 2nd counselor, and I love it! I am really enjoying being in Young Womens. It is a small group of girls, which I really like. I am loving getting to know each of them, they are such wonderful girls! John is still the YM Secretary, and its fun that we are both with the Youth. Once he is done his Tuesday night class he will be coming to Mutual with me, yay!

I got a new job! I am still nannying, but I am back to being full time. It is with a family with 3 kids, 6 years, 2 years and 6 1/2 months. Lets just say I am getting great training for when I have kids! I love the family, they are so nice. I actually knew them from when I worked at the daycare, and long story short... they left over a year ago, and I left about 10 months ago, and they called the daycare wondering if anyone wanted to babysit occasionally for them. Well, I am still friends with one of the managers there and they called me because they knew I needed a little extra money. Well, one thing led to another and the mom was going back to work and knew I was looking for a full time nanny job, and BOOM, they asked me to work full time! YAY! It was a true blessing. It is so nice to being working full time again and not be freaking out about money as much anymore! We still have to be careful, but we are a ton better off than we were before.

John is of course still at his job, and my brother in law Avery applied there, and hopefully will get the job and work with John! FUN =). John only has a few more weeks of class for this semester, which he is happy about. He is really enjoying his classes this time around, and learning a lot from them. They are more focused towards his job and he can actually apply things he learns, at work.

Hmm, We both had wonderful birthdays. We both got spoiled! John got a PSP Vita, and I got an IPAD2, and a new camera! (thank you tax return.) We are both loving our new electronics! I use the IPAD with the kids all the time. I already have a bunch of apps for them on there, hah. We also got a new printer, FINALLY. We were using one that I got for free from one of my dads friends, back when I was in like 11th grade. And he had used it for year previous to that. It was ready to go! We got a nice new wifi one, and its sweet!

Abby is still perfect as usual. She is getting SO big! I am spoiling her SO MUCH. I just cannot help getting her cute outfits and headbands. But hey, I am her aunt, I am supposed to right?! I cannot believe that she is 3 months already. I love my little niece! It makes me want to see all my other nieces and nephews, July are you here yet?!!! =)

WOW, this is a long post. I guess thats what I get for not posting for 4 months! Okay I think thats about all the good things....now onto the not so good. I have to have ANOTHER ear surgery on May 7. Luckily this one is a lot less invasive than the last one. Basically tissue healed right over the tube they put in my ear, so they need to go in and pop it out and maybe put a new tube in. Everything else healed really well the doc said, which is great! It stinks I have to have another surgery though, but oh well! I am trying to stay positive. Hopefully after this one things will only go UP! And on another note...I found out about a week ago that I have a cyst (and a big one too) on one of my ovaries. I found out because i had SUPER BAD pains that caused me to almost pass out a couple days prior. My mom told me to go to the doc, and its good thing I did! I have not heard anything about what they plan on doing yet, hopefully I hear early this week. I am praying that they can just give me medicine and not have to remove it surgically. (But with my luck, it will probably be the surgery.) I was so upset when I found this out, it was the LAST thing I needed. I think that if i do need surgery for it, maybe they can do it while they do my ear! hah, I know they can't but hey, I am trying to have a good attitude! So that was the bad news of our life right now. Hopefully these next few months will bring something really good, I need it! I am so sick of health issues. I am so sick of doctors. I just want to be done with it all. =(

kudos to whoever read all of this. You rock.

New Car, New Niece!

A quick video I made for Abby <3

Our new car!

Well, John and I have a new niece! Abigail Zoe Hellstrom came into this world Monday Jan.9, 2012! She came 5 weeks early but she is doing very well! She is so perfect. I love her so much! John and I are excited to have a niece so close to us! I have already been spoiling her =) I had to go out and get her newborn clothes, and that was...SO NOT HARD. I had so much fun getting cute little outfits! She is SO tiny, my sis thinks she is probably close to 6 lbs. She is so adorable. She grunts and makes all these cute faces already. She looked like me oddly enough for the first day and then after that she looks a lot like her daddy. She has a full head of beautiful brown hair as well. Have I mentioned I love her? Why yes, I do!

On another note, John and I got a new car! It is a Mazda CX7. We LOVE IT. I am actually driving it and John took over driving my lovely ford taurus. My excuse was that I have to drive 2 kids around...so I need the bigger car right? heehee. He was very nice and let me drive it mainly. It is so nice, and surprisingly not bad on gas mileage, which is a plus!

Nothing else major going on, I went to my post-op appt. for my ear surgery and nothing was really discussed because he could not see much since there was icky stuff still in there. I go back in 6 weeks to find out if the tube is doing its job...if not we may have to start talking about ANOTHER surgery. I am REALLY hoping it is doing what it's supposed to. I am so sick and tired of ear issues!! I feel like I have lived at the ENT for the past 3 months, BOO.

December ....

Well, this past month has been an interesting one. Not one that we had expected AT ALL. Started out fine until the morning of Dec. 6 when I awoke to a phone call from John saying he was in a car accident. A car came into his side and the drivers sides hit head on. Scariest phone call I have ever gotten. He said he was okay but I needed to come get him. Well I rushed downstairs, threw on some shoes and a coat and ran out the door. As I was driving he calls me to say he is being rushed to the ER! I was now officially FREAKING OUT. It took me what seemed like forever to get there and when I finally did everyone was very nice and showed me where to go. I walked in to see my husband laying on a hospital bed with scratches on his head and a neck brace! The neck brace was just protocol I guess... but still, not a fun sight to see. I called my parents and told them what had happened and my mom offered to keep trying his parents for me. She finally got ahold of them and they came about 2 hrs later. We got there around 7:30am and were there until about 12pm. Lots of tests were run on John, and LUCKILY everything was okay. He just had an abrasion on his head and that was it. We knew, without a doubt, that God was watching out for him. I am so thankful for that and that my husband is still with me today! Luckily my boss was really good about it and came home early from work so I could be with him. Johns mom was an ANGEL throughout all of this, she stayed with him when I could not. I could not have been more appreciative of that. Our home teachers were able to come over that night and give John a blessing, and everyone from the ward was reaching out and offering help. It was so nice to know that we have such good friends and people that care about us around. The rest of that week consisted of phone calls and more phone calls figuring out what to do next. We found out the car was totaled and started looking around for cars. That is the ONLY good thing to come out of that! It is kind of exciting to be getting a new car, but I really wish it was under other circumstances. John is doing much better now which is good because THIS week was his turn to take care of me! Which brings me to my next topic . . .

After all of that we still had my surgery to deal with 2 weeks later. I had my inner ear surgery this past monday. We went in and of course I was very nervous, but I knew everything would be okay. I was honestly more nervous for the getting sick afterwards. Anyway, John came with me of course and my mom was on call. She was going to come but then we realized I would not be able to see her at all because they only let one person back. So I went in, they got me prepped, and I went in for the surgery. They said that it would be a 3 hour surgery, so I should be done by 12pm. Well I woke up for the anesthesia and they said that I had been out of surgery for about an hour, and it as almost 230pm. Even though I was out of it I knew that did not seem right. Well I was in recovery for about and hour and a half because I did not feel good and just kept falling back to sleep! Finally I got to see John and SURPRISE! my mom came! I guess she just could not stay at home =) She came and they allowed her to come back as well. I was so happy. Anyway, my mom asked if they had told me yet what happened and I said no, and she winced and said she would tell me at home. I stayed at the hospital for about another hour and then finally was able to go home. I got home and my family filled me in on what had happened. I guess when the doctor opened me up he had to sit there for 20 minutes to figure out what to do because it was worse then he had thought. One of the bones in my ear had completely rotted out and he needed to remove it. So he removed a that bone and took the other 2 and connected them and drilled into the bone and put a permanent tube in my ear (different then ones I had as a kid) so that my ear would drain. Yeah .... when I heard that I freaked out a little bit. The doc also said that I may have to have more surgeries in the future, but he hopes this fixed all my infections. Now I get to go to the ENT every 6 months to see the doctor to make sure everything is okay still. It was not fun to hear that my inner left ear was that bad! The pain has not been to bad, I just could not talk very much the first few days. I NEVER got sick which I was so happy about, and I have only been on 2 advil every 4 hours. Pretty impressive right? The worst part has been the annoying dizzyness that has come along with this. The doc said I could have this for the next few weeks! It comes and goes but when it comes, its bad. It is like a dizzy headache and it makes me want to puke. Now almost a week later I am doing much better except for the pain and dizzies. I am back to my normal self, which is good. I have been staying with my parents so I get to go home on Monday!

Well, sorry for the LONG post, but December was an interesting month. Lots of things happened, along with a lot of learning. Neat-less to say, John and I are ready for a new year!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

DECEMBER 19, 2011.

December 19, 2011. This is the day that I get the pleasure of having my inner ear/ ear drum reconstructed. Yes, it is true. I found out for sure that I do need the surgery yesterday. My ear drum is perforated, and its basically just not there. The doc new within 5 seconds of looking in my ear that it needed surgery. The surgery could take up to 3 hours, and it is an outpatient one, which is nice. I have to take the rest of the week off from work, to just lay low basically. The surgery could cause dizziness, and of course there will be some pain! The recovery is pretty fast though the doc said. He said the goal of the surgery is for me to have a safe ear, and hopefully not get infections anymore, and not have all these problems I have been having. He also said that it may restore my hearing! He is not positive, especially in my case, because the surgery on my ear will be a bit more difficult than the other ones he has done, just because of how bad it is. I said I would rather have a safe ear over my hearing. I have lived without most of my hearing in my left ear for most of my life, so I will deal. This is why they have hearing aids! I won't know if my hearing is restored until 6-9 weeks after the surgery. So only time will tell! Hopefully everything goes well with the surgery and all the draining I have been having stops, but if not, then I will have to get a permanent tube put in my ear. UGH. He would put it in differently than they did when I was younger, so that it doesn't injure my ear again if it were to pop out. (yes, tubes popped out of my ears when I was younger. I was messed up basically...lol) Anyways, lets hope they do not have to do that. So, That will be my christmas present basically, a new inner ear! haha.

I just thought I would update any family that wanted to know! I will keep everyone posted.

Brittany